


Diodes of Amber

by nelliecrain



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-15 19:35:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16069856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nelliecrain/pseuds/nelliecrain
Summary: A collection of Reed900 drabbles





	1. At First

It had been 4 days, 12 hours, and 16 minutes since Detective Reed opened his eyes, and 0 days, 3 hours, and 48 minutes since he was stable. It was Nines who first noticed it- the way he became so pale so quickly, his drop in blood pressure and the irregular beats of his heart. 

The nurse brushed it off as nothing. “Plenty of patients in comatose experience changes in vitals.”

Nines knew it  _had_  to be more than that- but nobody listened until he began seizing- and they rushed him out of the room quicker than he could scan the Detective to see what was wrong.

_~~Was this fear?~~ _

And now he was here, sitting closer to the hospital bed than he had before, LED seemingly stuck in a constant state of spinning amber.

The monotone yet frightening ‘beep, beep, beep’ of the heart monitor filling the void of silence like lingering tinnitus. 

It felt wrong. It felt like everything around him was faltering. He couldn’t process properly, all of this thoughts seemed to end up thinking of  _him_. Every glance down at his arms, mottled with purple and blue, his eyes- gently shut- though occasionally rapidly moving underneath his eyelids in short-lived REM cycles.

The edge of the oxygen mask covered his stupid scar- the one that bridged over his nose at an odd angle. Nines had only asked about it once, and the detective told him he’d run into the wrong kind of people.

Nines had been there to protect him ever since the two were paired together- yet there were still so many things he could not prevent. And Gavin Reed was an idiot, and didn’t listen to anyone, and if  _he_  wanted to burst in to the scene without backup and without Nines, nobody could stop him.

~~_He was too late._ ~~

Humans were painfully dense creatures. Far too critical of themselves until it really mattered; and then they were ignorant of everything against them. 

Gavin was no different. He made no decision with rational thought and refused to depend on anyone else. Even if he needed them.

_~~Did Gavin need him?~~ _

Nines needed Gavin. 

Something he was sure of. 

All the instabilities, the flashes of unplaceable thought and confusion, things he could never place when he was around Gavin.

Where Nines was sensible, Gavin was impulsive. Where Gavin was emotional, Nines was unwavering. 

A flash of blue- and then his LED spun to amber once more.

He dismissed the software error message in his vision, and took in a little breath. A sound that countered the monitor’s irritating beeping.

With a single, hesitant movement, he placed one hand over Gavin’s.

Despite everything, Nines felt a warmth somewhere within his wires. Gavin had to be okay. That dumbass,  _he had to._

And Nines would be here until he was.


	2. Cats 01

“What about this one?”

Niles snapped back to reality in an instant, peering down at his partner crouched down by the glass of the enclosure.

“Hm?” He prompted, and Gavin pointed through the glass to a tabby kitten tumbling with a feather on the multicolored carpet. 

“The stripey one!” He responded brightly, and once more Niles couldn’t help but smile. Gavin rarely sounded like this. So  _happy_.

“Kittens are a lot of energy and work.” He responded idly, shoving both hands in the pockets of his coat while he waited for Gavin to give up and move on.

“Fine. What about… that one?” And once more Niles sighed as he gazed down, searching the enclosure for whatever cat Gavin had fallen in love with now.

“I have no idea to which you’re-”

“That one!” Gavin pressed one finger to the glass as a starkly colored black and white cat appeared to bat at the finger, apparently unfazed by the glass. “Looks like you.”

And suddenly Niles felt very self-aware of his similarly colored jacket. 

“Alright, then,” 

Gavin interrupted him with a tone of excitement. “So we can get him? You aren’t gonna say no?”

Niles took a small step forward, tilting his head a little to peer down at Gavin as he played with the cat through the glass. 

“You have to promise to take care of him.”  _Better than you do yourself_ , although Niles opted to leave that bit out. 

“Promise.” Gavin responded, barely looking up from the cat as it pranced back and forth, icy eyes bright with excitement, akin to how Gavin looked at the moment; a wide grin written across his usual expression. “And I’m naming him Niles the Second.”

_Gavin you fucking idiot._


	3. Morning

The thing about Gavin’s apartment was that it wasn’t the neatest, nor the most expensive, and instead of morning rays that warmed the bedroom and greeted either of them to a bright day, it was the shadow of having a window facing an alleyway. 

However, the silver lining was that they could get away with sleeping in later and being quite ignorant about the time of day they were missing.

It was, more or less, perfect.

The detective was curled up against his side, head resting on his chest, Nines’ arm wrapped around his shoulders. And although his eyes were resting shut, and breath so delicate and slow, Nines knew he was awake. 

And so he gently ran his free hand through Gavin’s hair, eliciting a small keening sigh, and a little bit of a smile- which Nines cherished.

His lips were still rosy, his cheeks flushed- and hair a mess of tangled bedhead. Inherently  _cute_.

“Mornin’, babe.” Came the tired slur of words, and Nines tilted his head fondly, twirling a lock of hair around one finger.

“How did you sleep?” He asked, and at this ran his hand down Gavin’s neck, coming to cup his cheek as the other’s eyes fluttered open.

“Better than yesterday,” Gavin offered, and they held a sweet sort of quiet for a moment, before Nines pulled back and sat up so suddenly that Gavin whined and wrapped one arm around his waist. “C’mon. Five more minutes.”

There was no way Nines could say no to him. Not with that gravely, just woken up voice, his sky-grey eyes open just so, and the way he slowly coaxed Nines back, pressing to him once more, and letting them exist together.


	4. memory

marred with olivine dapples, rough cicatrices of torn skin once mended by shaking hands, star-like freckles of nearly translucent skin, and long valleys of milky marks that he covered with hoodies and leather jackets, long jeans and sleeves that obscured everything he wished to forget.

and now, exposed under moonlight, each blemish was cherished with soft kisses and warm breaths, flittering eyelashes and hitched breaths so soft they could barely pierce the quiet sound of rushing air in the midst of a detroit winter. 

yet there were things he still hid from plain sight, things he shelved away like memories repressed among others. in the back of his mind, never to be touched again. to collect dust upon dust, perhaps a curious wanderer would glance upon the defects presented. a deep slash across his visage, a permanent frown that graced his brow; things that could barely be put past a personality issue or a wrongful past.

smooth fingertips- that shouldn’t be this warm, yet, they beat with the unshared blood of someone-not-quite. 

this one- a starburst of color, a bullet that hadn’t quite made it out right, leaving a knotted mess of uneven growth. 

and that- a shard of glass that found it’s way into one’s hand.

a delicate touch at his hip, where he’d fallen on ice and shattered two things that night.

a tremor at his throat where a thin line of electricity seemed to strike through the left-hand-side of his veins and muscles.

his knuckles, the most battered of them all- 

twin cuts that defined who he is not who he was-

the brindle of a body unloved-

loved by someone other than he, perhaps,

but unloved nonetheless.


End file.
